Doctor travels to Bolivia for medical mission trip

Friday

Having operated on skin cancer patients using the latest technological advances, Dr. James Herrmann has had to make do with a more primitive assortment of tools and drugs in Bolivia.

Having operated on skin cancer patients using the latest technological advances, Dr. James Herrmann has had to make do with a more primitive assortment of tools and drugs in Bolivia.

For the last four years, the Wheaton-based, board-certified dermatologist with DuPage Medical Group has traveled to South America on a medical mission trip, where the team provides free care to the underprivileged. The expeditions are led by Solidarity Bridge, an organization sponsored by the Chicago Archdiocese, and they have changed his life.

Herrmann sat down with Suburban Life to reflect on his recent visit to Bolivia.

Q: How did you get involved with the mission trips?

A: Enrique Via-Reque, anesthesiologist at (Central DuPage Hospital), is Bolivian and one of the organization’s co-founders. He approached me at church and asked if I would come. For starters, I’d never been to South America. And I always thought it would be nice to do a medical mission trip. There’s a great need for dermatological assistance. We’ve gone to Coroico, Bolivia, three times and Santa Cruz, Bolivia once.

We have teams of 20 or 25 people including a pediatrician, internist, cardiologist, ob-gyn, general surgeon, neurosurgeon, anesthesiologist, dermatologist and (ears, nose, throat). The basic specialties in healthcare. Plus we have a nurse, translator, priest or chaplain and administrator.

Q: What was it like getting to your location?

A: We traveled at a very high altitude, landing our plane at 13,000 feet outside La Paz and taking a bus through the Andes as high up as 16,000 feet to Coroico, which is at 5,000 feet. Some people on the team didn’t acclimate well and got sick. Some needed oxygen.

The hardest part of the trip is the road conditions. There’s this very narrow road with two lanes of traffic. It’s known as “Death Road” because it’s the most dangerous roadway in the world. It’s not paved so it gets muddy and slippery. There was no guardrail. People go over the edge every week or two. But now finally, they finished a new road. It took them 20 years to make minor infrastructure improvements. I think there’s actually a guardrail now.

Q: Did you experience any culture shock the first time around?

A: The biggest thing was the degree of poverty. Even the wealthier people lived poor by our standards.

Also, it struck me how there wasn’t the degree of discrimination that you see in the U.S. The Afro and Indian subcultures aren’t looked down upon. Everyone is treated with respect and dignity no matter what background.

Q: Were there medical or socioeconomic criteria locals had to have in order to see a doctor or was it just on a first-come, first-served basis?

A: Anyone can come but it’s primarily the very poor who can’t afford to pay for services. Over 65 percent of Bolivians live in poverty. The average wage is 1 or 2 American dollars a day. It’s the poorest area in South America and the second poorest in all of the Americas, following Haiti. That’s largely because they have no port access.

They advertise on the radio for about a month prior to our arrival that we’re coming. People wait all day and night to get a ticket to be seen. They come from the town and the countryside. A man with one leg and a crutch took several different modes of transportation — buses, trucks — to get to our facility. No one complains. You wouldn’t know of their hardships unless you asked. These people pick (crops) all day up in the mountains. They’re weathered. It’s back-breaking work in the sun. There’s a lot of work in the fields with coca crops. Agriculture is big because the country is landlocked.

Q: What was a typical day for you while you were there?

A: We practice out of a small little rural hospital in Coroico in the Andes Mountains. The hospital is run by a Catholic order of nuns. It’s very clean but very primitive. There’s no modern equipment, and everything is secondhand. We bring most of the medications, supplies, surgical instruments, sutures, toothbrushes, toothpaste and even toys for the kids. With the help of a nurse and translator, I do about 10 surgeries including the excisions of skin tumors, skin cancers and scar revisions. We see a lot of tropical infections, burns, impetigo, fungal infections and common things like warts, acne, psoriasis and moles.

Typically we’re there for 12 days, and eight of them are spent seeing patients. We start at 7:30 or 8 a.m. and work until 6 or 7 in the evening. Our sole mission is caring for the sick. More than 450 patients came in last time, many of them sleeping outside all night to see me. They had never had a dermatologist there until I showed up. People wait a year to come back and see me. The plan was to start a clinic to treat burns and tumors, so hopefully that’ll happen.

Q: What was the patient interaction that sticks out most in your mind?

A: The first year I went, I excised a little skin tumor off of the back of a man. I don’t usually think anything of it because I see 400 people. The man works construction. A year after I did the procedure, he came back every day after he finished working to see me but he never got any face time because he couldn’t secure a ticket. I felt terrible because he wouldn’t have had to do that if I knew that he just wanted to speak with me and wasn’t looking for care. Finally, he slept on the grass and got a ticket. He came to ask me to be his daughter’s godfather as a sign of his gratitude.

I was invited over to his home — which was what we would think of as a shack — for a meal and a special haircutting ceremony. He opened up his primitive, tin-roofed, dirt-floored home to me. His wife cooked up a chicken in their clay oven and we sat at a picnic table. But when it came time to baptize the 4-year-old daughter, they couldn’t find the bishop. He asked me to wait until the next year when I would return to complete the ceremony. Unfortunately, my organization decided to travel to another location that year, so I wasn’t able to visit the family. It would be two years before I could baptize her, and I had to get word to him. In the meantime, the little girl got encephalitis, which is an inflammation in the brain, and got very sick. So they had to do an emergency baptism. But I still see them every time I go back, and we’ve developed a wonderful relationship.

Q: Do you ever get overwhelmed by the number of people who need medical attention? Or do you try to stay positive given the few you are able to help?

A: The experience really moves you. It’s easy to complain about things, but the trips put things in perspective. I’m usually pretty thankful for my life for two or three months after I get back. You don’t whine about anything because you realize how good you have it. We have choices, options, hot water. These people don’t.

It’s overwhelming because you can never take care of everybody. Some people have chronic diseases, and all you can do is give them samples you brought on the trip to hold them off for a few months. Sometimes you do feel like “Is this worth it?” because there are billions of people who are destitute. But you have to think about the difference you’re making for those whose lives you touch.

Suburban Life

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